Cool. And I can eat as much as I like without being considered an addict?

Thanks Zeno. Keep reporting about your travels and experiences. And let the haters in politics remain unable to understand you and your qualities that are enjoyed here.

I had some recent Indian family cuisine experience too and seems i got luckier and had much better result. Mostly vegetarian but good.

"Wiener purists" just asking to get disrupted.

Do you have any actual evidence of this? I know that scientists theorize that this happens, but has anyone actually measured in-brain endorphin levels after chili? Can we even do that?

Why don't people add chili to porridge then, if it's all endorphins? Could there be a business opportunity in capsaicin laced milk?

Yes. People like to feel things.

Yep.

As a small aside, the gustatory regions of the brain activate as if spicy heat is actually a flavor.

They've done some fMRI studies and rat studies. Also some pain studies (endorphins are the primary means in which our brains control the perception of pain). Also, burn detecting neurons (the ones that capsaicin activates) cause an endorphin release in the brain normally.

I'd theorize that our brains are finely tuned to be rewarded by foods that don't kill/sicken us the first time around, or that it is a matter of our brains needing a general functional depression of pain signals from heat detecting neurons for us to act well in the world following a burn.

Very little is "all about x." People also like the color green, but not so much green eggs and ham.

The homeostatic emotion theory (that I happen to think has decent merit) has a goldilocks component built into it. People like being hydrated, but only so much. Same as arousal.

Chili without the heat is just beans.


PairTheBoard

Reading this makes me sad. My deepest sympathies.

I developed a brief but serious (throat closed, no breathing) reaction to chillies some years ago. I chose to back the addiction and fortunately it went away.

It's awesome. Awesome is addictive. Plus endorphins etc. Chilli to food is a bit like bitter to beer.

couple of recommendations for you.

Chilli Cool (nearish Euston). http://chillicool.co.uk/
Ignore the reviews. We were recommended this place by a Chinese guy who really loves and knows it's food. It's the biz.

sichuan folk. (Just off Brick Lane. Slightly variable but I love this place)https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...iew-jay-rayner

In both cases you will struggle to get them to do it at full heat but you may not be ready for that yet anyway.

Funny how chilli and ginger originated on opposite sides of the planet but taste like they were made for each other.

That's scary. Any more details? Did it happen suddenly? I love my Som Tam loaded with chilis.

It was out of the blue. I had been eating increasingly viciously hot food for best part of 20 years. Then I was on holiday in Italy, had some fresh chilli on the side (definitely hot but nothing special) ate a piece and my throat closed. Hard to measure in time but it was significant.

Didn't come up for the rest of the holiday but back in blighty and at work there was a thai restaurant I used to go to for lunch sometimes and I thought **** it. This place did seriously hot food and my throat closed again although maybe it relaxed a bit quicker. And again the next time but nowhere near as bad. Then the problem went away.

Another decade+ has passed and I eat way hotter food now with no issues at all (apart from the pain)

Geez. Props on the cajones. If my throat closed twice I'd swear off chili, as painful as that would be.

Things are getting out of hand now.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/831...AGULLS-attacks

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/polit...told-1.3002831

The big European seagulls are vicious. In Nice I've watched as a couple of them tore apart a living pigeon in the park and ate its innards, while French children watch on with horror on their faces.

Seagulls carry diseases and are just an annoying bird. I've never liked them. A 4-10 shotgun does a good job of splattering these vile birds into bloody shreds. Other deterrents given below:


birds-seagulls-deterrent

If I had to I could give up alcohol immediately. I really doubt I could ever give up chilli.

Mint's like a weed too. I do flicker for spicy food, from one meal to the next. but I am down for mint like always and preferably when allergies get nasal. Altoids GOAT food invention IMO.

A story from work:

I get a call from Con Ed, NYC's power company. 'We can't get into the basement to read the meters at building xxx bec of the chickens.'
'What chickens?'
'The chickens in the basement.'
'Well, I didn't know that there were chickens in the basement but what's the big deal?'
'We won't read the meters until you get rid of the chickens and there's going to be a problem.'
'I'll check it out.'

So I go to the building and I should mention that it's in the winter w/ snow on the ground some of which stuck to my pants and shoes. I get into the basement and am immediately attacked by a swarm of maybe 20 chickens that start pecking my shoes and pants w/ their sharp beaks and I was kicking them going 'ouch, ouch' and yelling for the super who comes out. I tell him to grab a couple of brooms and we swept the chickens into the boiler room and shut the door.

Me to the super: 'You have to get rid of these chickens bec of Con Ed.
Him: 'What am I supposed to do w/ them?'
Me: 'Start cooking, I'll be back at 6.'

lol?

btw, I once got a similar call from the phone company regarding spaghetti on the fire escape.

Having led the lost sailors to their true home, the seagulls were mildly upset as they congregated along the rocky shore. Seems the gulls had been guiding lost souls for so many generations they simply couldn't find the way back to their own home.

(Truth be told, the seagulls no longer have a true home. Their former home, the Isle of Mooch, located 300 nautical miles southeast of Australia and devoid of human inhabitants for over two hundred years, was appropriated generations ago by a large flock of squatter pigeons, which had been carried there by a strong storm the day the last human left Mooch.

That human's name happened to be Brad. Brad was left on Mooch years before when the rest of his clan grew tired of the seagulls stealing the clans food during vacations on the shore. The clan left Brad on Mooch because he had taught the seagulls to scream "Braaaaad!" when swooping down to snatch children's ice cream cones.

Brad left Mooch in a tiny row boat in search of his friends, the seagulls. He hoped, if he got lost, the seagulls would come and guide him home. Sadly, the seagulls never really liked Brad, so let him starve to death, stealing every fish Brad caught while afloat on the sea. They then ate what was left of Brad's shriveled remains, thus dooming all seagulls to an eternity without a home. This, due to Brad's genetic, and highly contagious, predisposition to not being able to find his way out of bed, let alone from one island to another across the vast oceans.

So, while it seems the seagulls are a nasty scavenging sort with an odd devotion to guiding lost sailors to their true home: the truth is, after eating Brad two hundred years ago, the seagull's lot is tied hopelessly in a love hate relationship with the human race.

The squatter pigeons are cool with it, though.)

I woke up this morning and this video was the first thing I watched. Hilarious.

I suspect the man won't grant me the permission to fire a shotgun into the air at the flying vermin, in a busy, built up, city centre. Anyone that lives in a residence, whereby they can walk outside firing a shotgun, I am
envious of. If you can do so in a robe and slippers and boxers on, without being judged, even more so.

I like the larger bird of prey idea. I need a falcon.

[QUOTE=DBurg;52579450]Having led the lost sailors to their true home, the seagulls were mildly upset as they congregated along the rocky shore. Seems the gulls had been guiding lost souls for so many generations they simply couldn't find the way back to their own home.

QUOTE]

Sailors, seagulls, land, the sea, territory and purpose. They've helped us in ways we take for granted, and thus we shouldn't turn our backs on them, just yet.

Chillies have capsaicin for the same reason roses have thorns - no reason.

If roses didn't have thorns, would I have had that teenage romance where "every rose has a thorn" was our slow dance song?

Meaning in the meaningless, hats off. Also, if Alabama isn't the place to fire off shotguns on the porch and get away it, where is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y6ruIXYmXY

mack

Pauli Malignaggi has a black eye and bruised cheek after eight rounds of sparring versus a mma fighter with 16oz gloves and headgear.